April schedule

This class is going to take an in depth look at an integrated approach to your canine athletes physical and emotional wellbeing. This will include: home life, emotions and behavior, competition and training, physical health and wellbeing, and fitness.

This class is all about the special dogs. The ones that don’t suit general fitness classes, because they have specific needs. This class is for YOU!

Adolescence is the stage where dogs have big bodies and big emotions, but brains that are still very much under construction. Between roughly 6 and 24 months, it’s common for previously well-trained youngsters to seem inconsistent, impulsive, or become a founding member of the "We Do Not Care" club.... — especially when excitement, movement, or real-world distractions are involved.

Most dogs are not innately confident. Especially when it comes to obedience. A sport that is not inherently self-reinforcing. A sport where dogs must learn to perform complex behaviors under a lot of pressure. In this course we will explore what we can do to improve our dog’s overall confidence and confidence in the ring. This starts with clear, consistent communication. We must learn how to read our dog’s most subtle cues in real time and adjust our response. We must understand our dog’s learning style and structure our teaching accordingly. We will look at how to create a training session where the dog has a high success rate while using a small ratio of errors to create resilience. We will play fun games with our dogs that empower them and teach them that they can overcome challenges. We will be working on YOUR confidence as well! We’ve all watched our dogs make mistakes and had no idea how to help them. Once you can read and understand your dog and their learning style, you will develop the skills to support them.

Once your dog understands behaviors and exercises, the next step is building confidence and resilience. In this class, I will show you how to create thoughtful challenges your dog can win. By setting up problem-solving scenarios that ensure success, you’ll teach your dog to think, adapt, and thrive under pressure.

Do you have “heeling envy”? Do you see all those prancing dogs in perfect position looking up at their handlers and wish you could teach your dog THAT? Does your dog love the pivot platform, but how DO you get from there to a finished heel position with no handler “help”?

Disc dog is an amazing sport that has a variety of elements suitable for any toy-driven dog. This hybrid “handler’s choice” course will allow each team to work on the aspects of disc dog that suit them best but will also contain a basic foundation curriculum with lectures and videos as well. All lectures will be released and the beginning of the course and can be worked on as needed. Handlers can choose a variety of topics including but not limited to foundation flatwork, jump drills, tricks, strategy for games and disc throwing.

What do you get when you combine air movement, target odor, strategic hide placement, and setup strategy? You get a dog who understands how to search effectively!

Nosework is one of the fastest-growing dog sports for good reason — it’s fun, builds confidence, and is suitable for dogs of all ages and temperaments. Nosework is especially helpful for dogs who struggle with reactivity or low confidence. Even in just a few weeks, you’ll see your dog tuning out distractions and focusing on target odor.

Did you know that the MOST important time in a dog's early career in Nosework happens AFTER they learn target odor (as in NW101) and BEFORE they start their general searching? Making mistakes now are costly. In this transition time, the dog (and handler) learns searching habits, passive indication, precision, consistency, and the ability to work in new and novel locations. THIS class forms the initial foundation to get you off onto the right track. Without these skills, a team may suffer from missed hides and false alerts and their ability to move up the levels successfully may be hampered.

Want to take your Nosework skills to the next level?